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Madhouse |
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Dr. Clark Stevens has recently started working at
Cunningham Hall asylum and it doesn't take long
before he realizes that something's not right
about this asylum. He starts investigating the
history of the asylum together with a female nurse
but what they are about to discover might lead to
their deaths. Meanwhile a mysterious killer is
roaming around the asylum, killing people at random.
Madhouse is like a mix between Scream and House on
Haunted Hill (remake) but with a much slower pace.
I can honestly say that I had no idea that this was
a slasher at all actually. I thought that I was
just in for a creepy asylum movie. Now, the movie
does have its creepy and ghostly moments but in
the end it's nothing more than a complicated slasher.
When I say complicated I mean that there's a lot
of investigating and mysteries in the movie, and
I know that slow build-ups can be great but the
slow pace and long build-ups really didn't get this
movie anywhere at all.
Now here's the real surprise about the movie, it's
simply full of big names. Jordan Ladd, Lance Henriksen,
Joshua Leonard and more! It really doesn't seem right
that this should be sent straight to video even if
it's not more than an averagely scary horror flick
with more plot than it can handle. William Butler
has directed this flick and while it's pretty obvious
that he's a rookie director, he's still a pretty
good one. My only problem with the directing is that
there are so many potential scares in here that
aren't properly executed so instead of making us jump
they just seem out of place.
I think I had too big expectations on this one, it
didn't live up to them. I had also heard that the
end twist would be excellent and unpredictable but
to be honest, I kind of saw it coming from the
moment I started watching the movie as many
slashers have used this twist before. Madhouse is
an all right flick for a Thursday night, it looks
good, it's not something you see everyday (though
most of us have seen it before at least once) and
it does still give us a couple of jumps. With a
drastic increase of body count and with a faster
pace, this might've been a really good slasher but
in the end of the day a horror movie can not rely
on the final 20 minutes and that's exactly what
this does. Still, it's worth a watch.
A guy gets his head decapitated, another one gets
an axe in the shoulder and we also get to see some
brains and dead bodies but that's pretty much it.
Too bad this flick really needed more gore.
There's nothing out of the ordinary here either.
We get some very unmelodic piano music and also
some heavy rock music. Nothing special.
Madhouse was to my huge disappointment only an okay
time spender. If you go in with no expectations you
might like it better than I did. Honestly though, it
was simply too dragged out and it's hard to keep
interested when there's absolutely no pace in the
movie at all. This was in desperate need of a pacemaker.
Good for a rent but not much more.
Review By: AnthroFred
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